Welcome back to another Tuesday Teaser, y’all! As some of you may already know, I was forced to put my plans for Blackbriar Cove on hold after the hellacious 2020. However…I’m excited to report I’m back on track with my second draft and plan to publish this year!
Besides that, I’m also drafting a new, special, top-secret-ish project with my writing partner, Melissa Wright! We’re super pumped for this story that’s been in the works for years. We’ve plotted and brainstormed so much, but the timing wasn’t quite right. Until now 😉
Stay tuned for more! Meanwhile, enjoy this week’s sneak peek inside Blackbriar Cove.
*spoilers ahead*
Blackbriar Cove
Borderlands #2 Teaser
She woke to arms slipping around her waist, long legs tangling with hers, and a cold nose grazing the back of her neck. Amie sank deeper into the unexpected embrace as relief settled over her anxious heart.
“I’ve been so worried.” Her voice held the rasp of sleep, and she hadn’t opened her eyes yet. He’d often held her in the privacy of her bedroom, and she’d always woke alone in the arms of her ghost.
Chilled lips brushed against the pebbled skin along her shoulder blade. His reply came as a velvet rumble. “I came as soon as I could.”
Amie squeezed her nails into her palms. “Where did you go?”
His smooth cheek grazed her ear and his chest expanded against hers as though he wanted to drown in her scent.
He always did find comfort that way, reminded the echo of her past self.
“I returned your knight and her kin as promised, Nim.”
Amie stiffened and opened her eyes to find, not her suite of rooms in Wenderdowne, but a shadow-drenched room in a wooden house in the mountains. Her hand found his pressed over the space between her breasts and the telltale slow beat of Emrys’s unnatural heart pulsing beneath her touch.
Shallow breaths escaped as she struggled for the dreamy calm she’d felt on waking. She had been so relieved to wake to him.
“Emrys?” Amie whispered and watched the shadows dance like smoke and writhing flames about the room.
He curled his body more tightly around her. “I meant to wait and watch, but I couldn’t bear this distance any longer.”
Amie frowned. His speech had been slightly slurred before, as though each sentence had been a struggle for his new body to form. He spoke clearly now, but the timbre of his words was different, as though roughened by illness. Emrys had never been ill in all the years she could recall between two lifetimes.
All this she thought while running a soothing hand over his, as she twisted her head to find his eyes closed and his skin a sickly pale. More unsettling, Amie did not sense the pull of him drawing the shadow side to her mooncraft power. “What happened?” she dared ask. “Why…were you trying to stay away?”
Emrys opened his eyes and it wasn’t like before, a black hole of endless stars, but an abyss of pitch flames nearly obscuring the iris. “I saved them, just as you needed. That’s all that matters, min tungol leoht.”
Amie searched his gaze and hesitated.
Don’t you dare force him.
“Emrys, I need you to tell me exactly what happened and why you decided to stay away.” She waited, hating herself as his features contorted. A muscle in his jaw pulsed before a grim reluctance etched into the corners of his reluctant grimace.
Through clenched teeth, he replied, “I couldn’t steal your shadows without killing you, and I couldn’t let the spirits possess a Blackbriar.” His grasp tightened on Amie and she held onto him in return. “So, I took their ichor into myself.”
Amie quickly blinked, determined not to cry out from the bruises he was leaving in her skin. “What do you mean by ichor?” Her voice wasn’t as steady as she would have liked. Faye hadn’t explained where they had been when Emrys found them. She had only known to be afraid because of Grim’s warnings.
Emrys shuddered and retreated, his hold easing as he pressed his nose again to the back of her neck. “Forgive me, love, but it was the only way I could protect you.”
“Protect me from what?” She felt his reluctance to answer in his silence.
Finally, he begged, “Let me hold you, just for tonight?”
“And tomorrow?”
Emrys pressed a kiss to the base of her neck and trailed a needy hand along her curves. “Best if I watch over you from a distance, until this is over. The others won’t understand. They already expect the worst from me.”
Amie squeezed her eyes shut as she recalled her conversations with Grim and Faye. How close had he been at the time? Had he been watching her? How much had he heard?
Emrys took her shiver as a request for him to burrow her into his embrace. “Please, sleep. I won’t let anyone hurt you, Nim.”
to be continued…
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Silver Hollow (Borderlands #1)
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Jennifer Silverwood 